REFLECTIONS - IT’S JUST A
MATTER OF LUCK
We have often been asked how we could be
so lucky as to have the three all-time top ten sires you see above, over half of
the top ten dams, and more than a few ring record holders. We no longer breed
Akitas but we can still tell you about Luck.
We were lucky in Rottweilers but our luck
began back when we had Dobermans. By the time we got our first Akita, well
before the breed was recognized, we had learned the genetic combination that
would serve us for the next forty years. And we had already met Luck.
Our biggest break was what I wish for
every novice. Was it luck? Coincidence, or God’s Hand when I met and was
accepted by my first mentor in dogs? I often think it was the latter because it
is through dogs that almost every good thing in our lives has come about. It was
through dogs that we met other significant people in our lives, developed an
interest in nutrition, then medicine, and ultimately in why and how Nature works
- and what Nature really is.
We owe a great debt for the thousand hours
of tutelage I received from Dorothy Gooch, Skyraider Dobermans. When we met
Dorothy and Wayne, they were at a downturn in circumstances. He was a recovering
alcoholic who had recently lost a considerable fortune for the second time. At
one point, we took in 20 of their 27 Dobermans. Caring for the dogs, and the
chance to care for two wonderful people and come to love them was surely another
stroke of luck. I re-lived the moment when Ch. Skyraider’s The Caravel went WB
at the Garden. I relished the success of Ch. Skyraider’s Top Flight even as I
sat on the floor at Dorothy’s feet with Topper’s head in my lap. I came to
know George Rood as a great dog man, not just as a “famous handler.” I
learned of Peggy Adamson (Damasyn) and Tess Hensler (Artal), already legends,
and many other breeders who were themselves to become legends.
It was Wayne (former DPCA Delegate to the
AKC) and Dorothy that taught me how to really read a pedigree, how to mate a
difficult bitch, and why sometimes, it shouldn’t happen. Oh sure, I had grown
up with dogs, hunted over them, and spent hours confiding in my best friend’s
long silky ear, and I was an expert in many things - but I knew so little! We
had bred our first litter, sired by a Warlock son, when I met Dorothy. I shudder
to think where that litter would have led us had it not been for her wise and
patient counsel.
There were other mentors in our dog-lives.
Some of them still don’t know how I studied them and learned from them. Since
this is about dogs, I won’t name them except to say my “other” mother was
Lina and if there was anything Dorothy left out of my education, Lina filled in
the blanks and she could tell a story as well as Dorothy Gooch!
So what is luck? Luck is being blessed by
having the opportunity to learn and recognizing it as such. Luck is keeping your
mouth shut so that your ears can work and your brain can function. Luck is about
applying the lessons you learned, even when it would be more convenient to do
otherwise. Luck is about burning the midnight oil and phone lines, then shipping
a Rottie bitch from Florida to Washington state at a time when very few people
flew!
Surely it is the chance phone call to Sam
Rivkin (Silver State Kennel Club) that resulted in our first Akita. Or maybe the
lucky part was realizing that she wasn’t what we wanted to breed and
consequently being guided by Sam to seek out Bob Campbell. Luck must have driven
our vehicles on all those trips to Georgia and sometimes it was sheer luck that
we were able to pay the phone bill!
No doubt it was all of those things for
there are moments when each of us encounters Opportunity and Obstacles. Often,
it takes a stroke of luck to understand which is which. Sometimes they are the
same thing. Good luck is definitely the ability to learn from the bad luck. But
the greatest good fortune of all is in knowing that not much in our lives is
only chance or happenstance.
The incredible film work above was a
surprise gift from Moretto Film Company, Santiago, Chile, So. America. Maurizio
Moretto is another lucky breeder who overcame distance and language barriers to
achieve the highest levels of success for his Akitas ACE.
The dogs are Ch. Okii Yubi’s Sachmo Of
Makoto, ROMXP, sire of 101 AKC Chs. (breeder Bob Campbell) Ch. O’BJ BigSon Of
Sachmo, ROMPX, sire of 48 AKC Chs. and Ch. The Widow-Maker O’BJ, ROMPX, sire
of 76 AKC Chs. All three sired many top winning champions in other countries and
all sired countless ROM progeny.
by BJ Andrews, Akitas O’BJ
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